


late night

by plumestrike



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Cats, Comedy, Gen, Humor, Original Character(s), POV Third Person, ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:47:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumestrike/pseuds/plumestrike
Summary: L has a silent, late night engagement with a deadly adversary.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	late night

He's perched as usual in front of his desktop, slouched over his knees and going over data entry from the past two weeks. It's 4 in the morning and he's the gargoyle in the watchtower, perched and ever vigilant, calcified and weatherworn.

With one hand he picks up the tea cup next to him (long gone cold, semi-dissolved sugar clumped at the bottom) and takes a sip, neither turning his head nor his gaze from the screen all the while.

He jolts when, a thump to his right, and suddenly there's the dark form of the stray cat he’d picked up and all but forgot about. It slinks its way in front of him and knocks his other hand away, sprawling itself out on top of his keyboard.

It takes a moment for him to react from the unexpected violation of his solitude and the derailment of his workflow, but before he can think to shove the thing off, it sits up on its hind legs and pats its forepaws onto his knees. He can feel its claws gently hooking themselves into the fabric as it kneads his jeans, arching its back as it stretches.

All the while, it engages him in a wide eyed staring contest. Its silhouette carves a shadow against the monitors glow and his eyes dilate from the contrast, and he finds himself gingerly setting his teacup back onto its saucer next to him, unwilling to waver in this newfound silent combatant that's placed itself before him.

With the same pincer grip, he grabs one of the paws that've been digging into his jeans. He averts his eyes to examine the paw he now holds delicately between his thumb and forefinger. He flicks his gaze back into its eyes and gives a light squeeze. The cat’s nose twitches, but otherwise the creature seems to remain aloof, so he squeezes it again.

Blinking slowly into the thin slit fluorescence, he doesn't even realize he's slouched quite so forward, chin almost resting back on top of his knees, until the cat's coiled tension releases itself, lunging towards him.

Except, rather than having the sudden full body force of an 8 pound feline being flung into his face, the paw he was squeezing is yanked out from between his fingers and slapped against the bridge of his nose.

He squints cross eyed at it before peering at the cat's narrowed eyes. Somehow, in that moment looking at its smug little face he can't help but feel a strangely wounded sense of pride. Paw still firmly weighing itself on his face, the cat looks impassively at him. Its eyelids have drooped and it blinks slowly back up at him. 

He pushes the cat off the table.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Me:** I should attempt writing something simple so I can get an idea of how to characterize for the rly invested AU I wanna write  
>  **Also me:** writes this abt L who is not even kind of relevant in the AU and unlikely to appear....okay then!
> 
> But lmao. I think L is the kind of person who thinks he likes animals, as a concept, but when he sees one IRL he ends up becoming a halloween cat decoration himself. Arched back, bug eyed. It takes both a specific kind of human being and animal to accustom themselves to one L LastName is the conclusion I've come to.
> 
> So yeah. Anyone who wants to hear me talk at length abt the urban fantasy DN AU im planning hmu on @benevolentdecay on tumblr. It's like...barely a DN AU at this point and I have no actual plot decided but I do have all of the main character arcs planned and some worldbuilding tidbits. Life is a sequence of events.


End file.
